ABILENE – The ACU Wildcats welcomed a familiar face to Abilene basketball fans back to the Key City on Tuesday when ACU director of athletics
Jared Mosley announced that he has hired former Hardin-Simmons head coach
Julie Goodenough to take over the ACU women's basketball program.
Goodenough is the sixth head coach in ACU women's basketball history, and she'll begin her duties next week. She'll be introduced as the Wildcats' head coach with a press conference next Wednesday at 2 p.m. in the Hunter Welcome Center on the ACU campus.
Goodenough was the head coach at HSU from 1993-2002 before going to Oklahoma State for three seasons. She has been the head coach at NCAA Division I Charleston Southern for the last six seasons. In 18 seasons as a head coach she has put together a record of 289-220 (.568 winning percentage).
A native of Haskell and a graduate of Texas-Arlington, Goodenough is excited to return to her West Texas roots and, in particular, Abilene.
"I'm really excited and thankful to be the new head coach at ACU," Goodenough said. "My family is really happy that we're moving closer to our family and friends. From a job standpoint, I've always believed that Texas high school girls' basketball is the best in the country, and I'm excited to get back to recruiting that area hard and get our program back to top of the Lone Star Conference."
While at HSU, Goodenough won 78 percent of her games and presided over the transition from NAIA to NCAA Division III competition. However, she said she always had an eye on what was going on down Ambler Ave. at ACU.
"I've always been impressed with and valued the winning traditions of ACU athletics and what a quality university it has been over the years," she said. "I believe people are looking for a Christian atmosphere for their kids, and I'm excited to be able to sell to recruits the mission of ACU and what kind of programs we have in place."
Mosley said that while ACU had numerous qualified candidates for the position, his conversations and interview with Goodenough led him to believe she was the first and best choice for the job.
"We're very excited to welcome Julie and her family back to Abilene and into the ACU family," Mosley said. "I believe she'll be a tremendous asset not only to our women's basketball program, but also our athletic department in general and the university as a whole.
"In my conversations with her about this job, I have been extremely impressed with her level of commitment to the mission of ACU and how she plans to lead the young women in our program," she said. "I've found her to be a dynamic personality with a vision for where she wants to take ACU women's basketball and what she wants the program to be about as we move forward."
Goodenough will be in town next week to get some individual workouts in with the players returning from last year's squad, including third team all-America guard Mack Lankford, who will be a junior in 2012-13.
"I'm anxious to evaluate the team and get to know them and look at what we need to do to be successful in the LSC next season," she said. "I believe we can be a competitor right away in the league, which would make us a contender for a spot in the regional tournament as well."
Goodenough takes over for Shawna Lavender, who was let go by the university Feb. 27 after she posted a 12-14 record in her ninth season as the head coach.
In her 18 seasons as a head coach, Goodenough is 289-220 with 188 of those wins coming in her nine seasons at HSU. She was 23-61 in a short, three-year stint at Oklahoma State and is 78-105 in six seasons at Charleston Southern. However, during her time as the Buccaneers' head coach, she has posted two of only four winning seasons in the program's history, which dates back to the 1976-77 season.
In fact, before Goodenough took over the CSU program, the Buccaneers had only two winning seasons from 1976-2006, and had endured two winless seasons at the NCAa level. She is 48-45 in her last three seasons at CSU and took the Buccaneers to play at Minnesota last week in the Women's Basketball Invitation (WBI) Tournament. Also, she led the Buccaneers to the semifinals of the Big South Conference Tournament in 2011-12, only the second time the Bucs have gone that far in the conference tournament.
At Oklahoma State, Goodenough recruited and coached the Big 12 Newcomer of the Year (Nina Stone, currently a college coach, after a brief stint playing professionally in Europe), and posted the 19th best recruiting class in the country in her first full season. Five of the top 10 largest home crowds in school history occurred during Goodenough's tenure, including the largest crowd to ever watch a home women's basketball contest.
Goodenough was inducted into the HSU Sports Hall of Fame in 2007 after guiding the Cowgirls to a 188-54 record in her nine seasons there, leaving as the winningest coach in school history. Her last four teams advanced to at least the NCAA Division III Sweet 16 and also coached her team to the NAIA national tournament in her first two seasons.
She captured seven Trans-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association or American Southwest Conference titles. She also recruited quality student-athletes as her last seven teams were named to the Women's Basketball Coaches Association Honor Roll as one of the top 25 teams in grade point average in the nation.
She coached three all-America selecions and 34 all-conference selections and 46 academic all-conference selections. Her teams won the first four ASC Conference Tournaments in league history. She also served as an assistant athletic director and senior women's administrator for the school.
